


whose soul shines brightest

by weird_bird (2weird4)



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics), Nightwing (Comics)
Genre: Multi, content ratings and warnings per chapter, way more relationships than tagged but decided not to clog too many tags
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-31
Updated: 2017-03-20
Packaged: 2018-09-13 13:48:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 39
Words: 3,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9126469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/2weird4/pseuds/weird_bird
Summary: One hundred word drabbles about my favorite Dick Grayson relationships, het and slash (/) as well as gen (&).Update 1/22: two Dick/Roy pieces and one Dick/Kory fluff.





	1. Dick/Kory: yes i do need to know my place (but all i want is your eyes)

**Author's Note:**

> Title from The Return of Donna Troy #1:
> 
> _"It’s Nightwing whose soul shines brightest. Raised in the shadow of the Bat, he overcame the death of his parents and the darkness of his mentor. Brave, unselfish, utterly kind - who wouldn’t fall in love with that strength and that smile.”_
> 
> Updates may be infrequent, pairing tags subject to change.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1 -  
> pairing: dick/kory  
> rating: mature (implied sexual content)  
> warnings: none  
> title from "northern lights" by bowerbirds.

Swathed in gauzy fabric, Dick blinks tiredly at Kory, hair flat on one side, red print on his cheek.

She crosses the room to him. Throws a scarf over their heads, turning the light on his pretty face pink, and bites his sweet mouth laughingly.

In answer, Dick wraps his leg around her waist, heel pushing against the long curve of her lower back. “Don’t wanna get up yet,” Dick breathes. “Don’t wanna go back to the real world.”

“Dick,” she whispers, “this _is_ the real world.”

He smiles, but his eyes run deeper than light can touch.


	2. Dick/Roy: too late to go out, too young to stay in

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 2 -  
> pairing: dick/roy  
> rating: teen (language)  
> warnings: none  
> title from "archie, marry me" by alvvays.

“You still have this?” Dick grabs up Roy’s old Speedy hat.

Roy’s not the hoarder Dick is. Sometimes just the fucking _yellow_ of the thing makes Roy want to pitch it out the window. 

God, he thought he was so cool. Not as cool as he thought Dick was, granted.

Dick whirls the hat around to jam on his own head, gone silver at the temples. He grins like the boy he never really was.

“For the record, I _never_ looked as stupid as you look right now.” Yeah, he’s glad he never threw it out.


	3. Dick & Damian: the passing of a silver ring

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 3 -  
> pairing: dick & damian (platonic)  
> rating: gen  
> warnings: none  
> title from "the tide pulls from the moon" by william fitzsimmons.

Brow furrowed in concentration, Damian strokes startlingly small fingers down the ray’s back. Bends so far that Dick worries he’ll fall into the touch tank.

Hastily, Dick winds an arm around him, hoists him upright. He’s tiny, runs hot, and Dick feels he could break him as easy as any of the delicate animals swimming under their hands. 

It’s an illusion, he knows. It’s nothing but the missing spaces inside Dick that make him hope Damian could need him.

“I can balance by myself, _thank_ you,” Damian snaps.

“You’re welcome,” Dick returns breezily just to hear him huff.


	4. Dick/Clark: the multiversal constant

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 4 -  
> pairing: dick/clark (one-sided puppycrush)  
> rating: gen  
> warnings: none  
> title from nightwing (rebirth) #9, quote from clark to dick: _in fact, of everyone i’ve met here, you’re the least changed from the version i knew. always confident, always kind, always cool. dick grayson — the multiversal constant._

“Down there! Your left!” Dick points with the arm that isn’t wound around Clark’s neck. He squeezes his calves tighter over his forearm as Clark’s eyes glow red. 

“Where to now?” Clark asks him without missing a beat. Blushing, Dick bunches his cape in his hands.

“Um, over back to Batman,” he tells him breathlessly. He’s eleven years old and ordering around Superman and Superman is _listening._ He pinches his arm a little.

Clark must feel the motion. “You’ll make a great leader someday, Robin.” 

If he could ever be half the hero Clark is, that’d be enough.


	5. Dick & Bruce: ice skating au pt 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 5 -  
> pairing: dick & bruce (platonic)  
> rating: gen  
> warnings: none  
> check out this video of [ten year old yuzuru hanyu!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prioS2I6iqw)

Ten years old and Dick Grayson flies like a bird on the ice. 

He pulls into an astounding Biellmann and emerges beaming and the word on everyone’s lips comes to Bruce’s mind: _prodigy._

“Yes! Yes, _za za za!”_ Mary Grayson yells. The son of world-renowned Romani American Olympic-medalist pair skating parents, Dick’s talent is at least being nurtured.

“I’d like to coach him,” Bruce admits frankly. The Graysons are straightforward people.

“We’ll consider it,” John returns at last, none of them looking away as Dick throws out his hands in victorious finish, little chest heaving fast.


	6. Dick/Roy: ice skating au pt 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 7 -  
> pairing: dick/roy  
> rating: mature (implied sexual content)  
> warnings: none

“Get back here, you little--” Roy chases Dick around the rink.

Sliding to a slick stop, Dick wiggles his hips at him and then skates a smooth orbit around him. 

Roy grabs, Dick flips away, old game made new every time their legs get longer and their shoulders broader. 

Hulking in heavy hockey gear and yet oddly uncertain, Roy scowls until Dick spins himself into his chest, all adoration.

When the sun drips up the horizon like yolk, Dick packs up skates and costume.

Roy’s still sprawled face-first in the bed where Dick leaves behind glitter and feathers and longing.


	7. Dick & Donna: you're gonna see it's our destiny

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 6 -  
> pairing: dick & donna (platonic)  
> rating: gen  
> warnings: none  
> title from "you've got a friend in me" by randy newman.  
> don't think about timelines too hard, i didn't

Dick reads the news about Massachussetts again and again, joy fizzing in his belly. “What’s gay marriage like on Themyscira?” he wonders.

Donna, lying on her stomach beside him, shakes her head, black hair rippling. “We just call it _marriage.”_ She shoots him a laughing look. “It’s the only kind you can have.”

“Oh. Right.” Dick grins back, not too embarrassed. “Well, what’re the weddings like, then?”

“My favorite part is when both the brides’ friends sacrifice the boar,” Donna enthuses with a sigh.

He crinkles his nose. “I’ll sacrifice a boar for you, Donna,” he promises anyway.


	8. fem!Dick/Babs: like we're running a yellow light

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 7 -  
> pairing: fem!dick/babs  
> rating: gen  
> warnings: none  
> title from "hurts so good" by astrid s.  
> fem!dick is really just for the hell of it. this drabble series is good for playing w plotbunnies lmao

“Nightwing!” Oracle’s breath shocks out of her at the touch to her shoulder.

“I think your security system is down,” Vic says helpfully, and Barbara could strangle her.

“Here about the files?” Her fingers light back on her keyboard.

Sound of kevlar against spandex. From behind her lean back, Vic produces a big bunch of Barbara’s favorite ranunculus in a gloved hand and a smile both more vivid and complicated than any tight whirling bloom.

Barbara sighs and reaches out to take them from her hand. Their fingers lock together. What they cling to keeps splintering in slow, sure cracks.


	9. Dick/Wally: something ritual and understated

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 9 -  
> pairing: dick/wally  
> rating: teen  
> warnings: none  
> title from the poem "one season" by tony hoagland (tw homophobia for the poem).  
> let me write cliches

“I have news,” Wally announces. His face and hair glow in the firelight. 

Camping trip, just them two, bro bonding that Dick never wore as easy as Wally. 

“Oh my god. You’re pregnant.”

“Uh, close.” Wally snorts, then dimples. “I’m getting married.”

Dick picks at a sticky bit of marshmallow. “Yeah? You finally popped the question?” When Dick looks up, Wally’s staring at him fondly and without a clue.

“I actually wanna pop another.” Another self-conscious laugh. “Will you be my best man?”

“Like you even need to ask.” Inside his chest, the quiet death of a love never born.


	10. Dick/Bruce: sacer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 10 -  
> pairing: dick/bruce  
> rating: teen  
> warnings: blood mentions, pseudo-incest overtones  
> in direct reference/response to batman/nightwing: bloodborne, so this may only make dubious sense if you haven't read it.

Sacrifice. From the Latin _sacer,_ dedicated, holy, accursed.

Brown hand on white sheets, dulled without scarlet pulsing under skin. Bruce’s fingers tremble to take his.

From the same root, sacred.

An adoption certificate to plaster over the wound they can’t stop tearing into each other. 

Some way to forever where he doesn’t have to say it.

What marriage vows reach into the veins?

Dick drives every beat of his heart; a symbolism he can’t escape; a loyalty he once demanded and can’t repay.

The blood of my body for the blood of your body.


	11. Dick/Damian: we both know you're my only dream

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 11 -  
> pairing: dick/damian  
> rating: gen  
> warnings: pseudo-incest  
> title from "heart beats" by hey marseilles.  
> i was going to write a full-fledged fic one day where dick and damian became nightwing and flamebird, but now that lacemonster has written me a gift fic based on that prompt, i'm just gonna go ahead and post this old snippet i have and call it a day.

“The story you told me when I became Flamebird isn’t the same as the story about Nightwing you told me when I was young,” Damian says lowly, landing behind Grayson on the roof of their apartment.

“You hate it when I repeat myself,” Grayson reminds him. The wind caresses his dark hair; the sunrise paints his skin gold.

“Tt.” Damian steps up to the ledge shoulder-to-shoulder with Grayson. “In the original story,” he insists over the roar of his heart, “Nightwing and Flamebird were lovers.”

Grayson closes his eyes, grins like he could outshine the dawn. “Yeah, Damian, they were.”


	12. Dick/Roy: hit or miss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 12 -  
> pairing: dick/roy  
> rating: teen  
> warnings: tw...weapons?  
> for karples's prompt "hit or miss."

“Shoot an apple off Robin’s head.”

Titans: no dare turned down. 

Robin with a big cheesy grin, little green shorts, shiny red apple resting on his head with perfect balance like some kind of crazed milkmaid.

Roy’s arm jumps and shakes. 

Can’t even aim an arrow. Drops his bow, not looking at Robin’s lenses, not looking anywhere.

“I knew you weren’t gonna hit me,” Robin whispers in his ear later while tracing his freckles. 

All Roy knows is that there are some risks too big and too stupid for even him to take. Probably means he’s growing up or something.


	13. Dick & Titans: our fingers traced in circles round its history

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 13 -  
> pairing: fab five  
> rating: gen  
> warnings: none  
> title from "laughter lines" by bastille.

_“You’re_ not in any of the pictures, Donna,” Dick protests, hand blocking the flash.

“Yeah, and you’re the prettiest!” Camera borrowed with a blurry gesture, Wally whizzes around the red-checked picnic blanket too small for five teenagers, scouting the best angle. 

In her grass-stained sundress and wilting daisy chains, Donna poses elegant as a princess.

Roy whistles and Dick elbows him so hard he topples over into Alfred’s tuna sandwiches.

 

There's Garth’s intruding knee. Teased him _chicken-legs_ after they had it developed. 

Footfalls in the Pequod. 

Dick flips the picture over, grateful his domino hides his wet eyes.


	14. Dick/Tim: comic book fantasy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 14 -  
> pairing: dick/tim  
> rating: teen (kissing, sexual reference)  
> warnings: pseudo-incest  
> has little bearing on this, but my headcanon tim is half-vietnamese, in case i wasn't breaking dcu enough already.

Tim’s Chucks dangle as he reads a comic sitting sideways. Dick doesn’t know how he can see from under his shaggy fringe. Violet fatigue undercuts brown eyes.

“Hey, good-looking.” Dick steals a kiss. After, he taps the cover. “We should do a Spiderman kiss.”

Tim just scoffs, second kiss an absent-minded smudge.

“Not your comic book fantasy?” Dick smirks, hands curled around the chair-arms. “What about a tit window?”

Tim’s eyes pop. Flick down to chest-level. His blush chases the waxy exhaustion from his face.

“Bingo.”

“Shut _up,_ Dick.” Tim finally kisses back, though, so who’s really winning.


	15. Dick & Cass: don't worry. i'm...a detective

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 15 -  
> pairing: dick & cass  
> rating: gen  
> warnings: none  
> quote from batgirl vol 1

“Sorry I’m late,” Dick mutters as he squats beside Cass. Stakeout, garden party. “Pretty boring, huh?”

“Nah.” Cass crosses arms over knees. “People-watching.”

“These don’t seem like interesting people to watch,” he says dubiously, scrutinizing a woman in candy pink gulping wine.

“All people...are interesting. If you watch long enough. Her.” She tips her chin. “Affair.”

“Ooh.” Deliciously scandalized, Dick watches the woman wend through the guests to a man whose pate gleams under the string lights. “No! With _baldy?”_

Cass giggles an affirmative.

He shakes his head. “You’re gonna put us all out of business, jellybean.”


	16. Dick & Jason & Titans: like i never wanted anything else before

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 16 -  
> pairing: dick & jason + kory, donna, roy  
> rating: teen  
> warnings: none  
> title from "i want you" by joan jett because i really strongly associate joan jett and jason.

Well-meaning, insufferable Dick drags Jason to a house party.

Introduces Kory first. Legs for miles, all golden skin and carefree confidence. Alien princesses. Who knew.

Donna has kindness in her eyes and cascades of black hair. Jason considers how to ask a woman he just met to punch him in the face.

Roy, he doesn’t expect. The rumble of his voice, the flex of his biceps. Crooked grin from behind his beer bottle.

“So?” Dick asks in the car, eyeing him over the top of his shades. “Had fun?”

Jason rolls his eyes. “Whatever. Your friends are cooler than you.”


	17. Dick & Bruce: best truest effort

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 16 -  
> pairing: dick & bruce  
> rating: gen  
> warnings: none  
> quote from batman/nightwing: bloodborne because i'm still not over it: "i see it now. my greatest fear. not that [bruce] would fall, but that i would fail him. that he would need me someday...and my best, truest effort would be...not quite enough."

“It was amateurish, _careless._ You—“ Bruce rounds on him and freezes.

Robin’s-- _Dick’s,_ mask is off—eyes stretch wide and blue and shiny. Bruce stares, petrified, as a fat tear rolls down his round cheek.

“Robin…” He doesn’t know what to say, only wants him to stop.

“No, Batman, you’re right.” The boy swipes his glove under his nose _(Alfred)._ “I know I messed up real bad.”

“The case closed successfully,” Bruce offers, gruff, unaccustomed to succor.

Brushing aside the weak placation, he nods to himself. “I’m gonna do better next time,” he promises soulfully.


	18. Dick & Tim & Cass & Damian: scheherazade

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 18 -  
> pairing: dick, tim, cass, & damian  
> rating: gen  
> warnings: none

Cass perches on Dick’s couch with a book of fairy tales.

“You want me to read to you?” He slings an arm around her, happy to oblige.

Damian shows up later with a limp and a sour face and when they get to “The Princess and the Pea,” Cass pokes Damian’s nose.

Tim visits a couple weeks into their tradition, laptop under his arm, focused on his files. Pretends to ignore them, stifles a laugh when Dick’s Emperor’s voice sounds suspiciously like Bruce’s.

Not happily ever after, but as long as he keeps reading, his apartment feels like a refuge.


	19. Dick & Bruce & Mar'i: those days

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 19 -  
> pairing: dick & bruce, dick & mar'i, bruce & mar'i, brief dick/kory  
> rating: gen  
> warnings: none  
> 1 of 3 mar'i stories.

From a croissant of yellow blanket, Mar’i Grayson burbles at him.

“Hm.”

“That’s all you have to say?” Dick laughs at him. Yet another warmth in his voice out of Bruce’s reach.

 

An Incident with kitchen scissors, fit of tomboyishness. Dick brushes the last loose curl off her head.

Mar’i beams at Bruce, gap-toothed and short-haired.

Bruce’s heart _flip flip flips._

 

Setting Dick and Mar’i down, Koriand’r smooths her flight-ruffled date-night dress and thanks him for babysitting.

Bruce accepts Mar’i’s tiny hand in his own. She yanks him inside, jabbering just to fill all the empty space in the house.


	20. Dick & Mari: dog days

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 20 -  
> pairing: dick & mar'i, mar'i and odc (original dog character)  
> rating: gen  
> warnings: none

Nose to glass, Mar’i declares, _”This_ one.”

Dick takes one look and doesn’t ask _Are you sure_ \--he’s as sure as she is.

They take him home, bedraggled five-year-old sheepdog mix, and they scrub him in the tub careful as they can as he shakes nervously.

“Michael,” Mar’i dubs him, hand on his head like a knighting.

“Mike, come!” A mistake Dick makes only once.

Mar’i thunders downstairs with the fury of a god. “It’s _Michael!”_

Michael and Mar’i snooze curled up together on the rug, and loneliness keeps feeling like someone else’s memory.


	21. Dick/Kory & Mari: snow days

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 21 -  
> pairing: dick/kory, dick & mar'i, mar'i & damian  
> rating: gen  
> warnings: none

Purple boots cutting quick paths through the snow, Mar’i faces down her lovingly-constructed snowman and blasts a hole through his chest (and her new gloves).

“Take that!” she cheers, muffled through the window, as the unbalanced snow slumps and showers the dog.

“Is letting her hang out with Uncle Damian this much is a good idea?” Dick grumbles, hands on hips.

“It is good for both of them,” Kory maintains with more faith than Dick thinks is warranted. 

Wrapping strong arms around him from behind, she rests her chin on his shoulder until he gives a reluctant snort and folds.


	22. Dick & Titans: growing pains

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 22 -  
> pairing: fab five  
> rating: gen  
> warnings: none

Puberty seldom handles anyone with care.

Wally shoots up, gangly, tripping over himself at high speed. His voice cracking forces his words to slow.

Roy’s face breaks out in furious scarlet acne. Picks up foundation tips from Dick and Donna. Pretends he doesn’t use them.

Garth develops inexplicable rashes up and down his arms and legs and spends afternoons formulating wicked creams.

Donna has marginally more grace than the rest of them except for a year of choppy bangs and an ill-fated bob. She wrestles with her armpit hair until she doesn’t.

And Dick?

Dick sails through adolescence with grace.


	23. Dick & Donna: green

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 23 -  
> pairing: dick & donna, dick & bruce  
> rating: gen  
> warnings: none  
> inspired by [this little number](http://graysonslittlebird.tumblr.com/post/155605572776/dick-pls) of dick's.

Dick models a remarkable confection of green and stripes. “Well?”

Donna weighs her options. “It has… _character.”_

“Character.” Dick relishes each syllable. “Cool.” 

Later, bench outside the mall, Dick digs at their shared ice cream with his spoon. Hesitates. “This is nice-- _so_ nice, but I kinda...wish I could celebrate with my family, too.”

Uncharacteristically forthcoming for him, at least when it comes to his mentor. Bruce leaving birthday money in an envelope did a number on him.

Donna twines their arms together. Smells the newness of his terrible shirt. Insists, “You _are.”_


	24. Dick/Roy & Lian: so sentimental (not sentimental no)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 24 -  
> pairing: dick/roy, dick, roy, & lian  
> rating: gen  
> warnings: none  
> title from "lisztomania" by phoenix.

"A cooking class?” Dick looks up from the brochure.

Roy makes that hurried, defensive face Dick’s never understood. “For Lian.”

“Room for one more?”

 

“Like this?” Dick asks the instructor, struggling to shape the beef.

“Getting there, getting there,” she soothes. “Your husband seems to be doing better.”

Roy already has four neat meatballs, Lian’s favorite, on his wax sheet. His eyes go sort of googly at _husband._

Dick nudges his shoulder coyly. “Show me?”

“Real cute, Grayson,” Roy drawls in his ear, leaning in close to fold Dick’s fingers around the mess.

“Yeah, I thought so, too.”


	25. Dick & Garth: shortpants

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 25 -  
> pairing: dick & garth, mentions of jl  
> rating: gen  
> warnings: none  
> kinda a little meta, haha. 1 of 3 stories about dick being gnc.

“D’you ever get _questions_ from other capes about the--you know--” Garth gestures to his own bare legs under his suit as they laze post-mission.

“Only all the time!” Dick exclaims, shaking his head. “I mean, I don’t get it. Donna wears a leotard.”

“ _Diana_ wears a leotard,” Garth agrees, getting really fired up.

“And Dinah wears fishnets.” Dick gives an eloquent shrug. “Anyway, the head-to-toe set doesn’t know what they’re missing.”

“Right? So much more freedom.” Garth offers a companionable bite of his hot dog.

Dick trades him a smoothie sip, agreeing, “Those tights don’t breathe.”


	26. Dick & Damian & Robins: pixie boots

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 26 -  
> pairing: dick, damian, jason, tim, & steph  
> rating: gen  
> warnings: none

“Are those _women’s_ pants?” Damian sneers.

Grayson cocks a hip in his pink sweats, JUICY printed across the backside. “Actually, they’re _my_ pants.”

 

Todd shucks his bulky gloves, revealing chipped nail polish.

He must feel Damian’s stare, because he lifts his eyes challengingly. “You want me to do yours?”

Damian _hmphs._

 

Rummaging in the closet, Drake throws Superboy’s jacket over a crop top. 

“Are you serious?” Damian exclaims. “Am I the only straight Robin?”

Brown, leaning back, shoes on the table, snapback on backwards, has the audacity to snicker. “You’re _really_ not.”


	27. Dick & Bruce: and a cape

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 27 -  
> pairing: dick & bruce  
> rating: gen  
> warnings: reference to homophobic violence

Bomb threat at a Pride parade. 

Dick has the feeling Bruce didn’t want him to come, but he’s glad he did. The life and color remind him of the circus-- _home_.

And he’s more than delighted by the the men in beautiful elaborate wigs and long sparkly dresses.

“What we do is kind of like what they do, right?” he chirps at Bruce’s elbow.

Silence from Bruce. Thinking-silence? Ignoring-silence? Bruce has lots of silences. At last, a wary nod. 

“You still can’t… _bedazzle_ the R on your suit.”

He wilts.

Got Batman to say bedazzle, though.


	28. Dick & Steph & Robins: as though we could not be saved from the depths of the well

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 28 -  
> pairing: dick & steph, bruce, jason, tim, damian  
> rating: teen  
> warnings: canonical major character death  
> title from "follow you down to the red oak tree" by james vincent mcmorrow.

_Cherikla,_ Mary Grayson cooed, little bird with puffed-up chest.

Not brutal like Jason, not calculating like Tim, not vicious like Damian.

Steph wanted to prove herself to Batman.

Wanted to throw her life at his feet. Make him realize it meant something.

Careless, like Dick.

Bruce filled Jason’s suit with guilt in the places a boy’s life used to beat. 

He won’t taxidermy Spoiler, but she’ll be another monument to failure.

in the locker room, Dick finds a lavender sock.

Everyone else is going to have to remember her big bright heart.

Robin wasn’t meant to be a martyr’s name.


	29. Dick & Steph: sometimes my tries are outside the lines

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 29 -  
> pairing: dick & steph, damian  
> rating: gen  
> warnings: none  
> title from "unwritten" by natasha bedingfield.

“Hey, Batgirl!” Deep but cheerful.

Steph responds a second late. “Hey, Batman!” He’s gotta feel weird about answering to that, too. She throws out a hip, throws off a cheeky salute. “How’s it going, chief? Where’s the parasitic twin?”

“Grounded.” The corner of his mouth lifts.

 _“Nice.”_ Steph whistles. “Ready for patrol, Bat-mom?”

“Ready? I was waiting for you!”

Dick darts ahead, but that big old cape tangles nimble feet. Whiteout lenses stretching comically wide, he lands flat on his little bat-face.

So much for grace.

Howling with laughter, she skips on ahead. Hey, you snooze, you lose.


	30. Dick & Bruce: not quite enough

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 30 -  
> pairing: dick & bruce  
> rating: mature  
> warnings: rape, violence, trauma  
> set during nightwing #93.  
> title from same batman/nightwing: bloodborne quote as 17: "i see it now. my greatest fear. not that [bruce] would fall, but that i would fail him. that he would need me someday...and my best, truest effort would be...not quite enough."

Rain on his shoulders. Heat on his thighs. 

He should feel it all, but he doesn’t feel any of it. 

Since he was nine, he kept the fatal question under his tongue.

_would you still love me if i failed our way_

He should push her away, but his arms are lead. He doesn’t remember the feeling of the sky.

Can only remember the thunk of bullet into flesh.

_failed you_

Comm abandoned an arm’s length away, but Bruce is much farther out of reach.

_bruce. am i still your robin if i killed him, bruce._


	31. Dick & Damian: convict(ion)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 31 -  
> pairing: dick & damian  
> rating: gen  
> warnings: none  
> couldn't quite do violet_scythe's prompt, so i did something ridiculous instead.

Damian al Ghul is world-infamous, though not for quite the same reasons as Ra’s.

Ludicrous for him to be caught in this city. He’s trekked a hundred humid jungles, can still reliably call Gotham the armpit of the planet.

Only respite from plotting escape is watching the rotating cast of guards.

When Damian finally breaks out, Nightwing accosts him. It all feels very... _planned._

Pinned to the wall, he realizes--Officer Grayson.

“You’ll be pleased to know your dad’s a vigilante who calls himself Batman.” Nightwing chuckles. “You know, as a guy only locked up for freeing zoo animals.”


	32. Dick/Damian: for keeps

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 32 -  
> pairing: dick/damian  
> rating: teen  
> warnings: pseudo-incest, possible underage vibes, though not intended  
> for lace's prompt: more sweaters!

“So that’s where my Hudson U sweatshirt got to.” 

Damian’s hunched twelve-year-old shoulders drown in the huge sweatshirt.

“Keep it, I don’t care.” 

Napping with Titus, fourteen, cozy private quiet.

Sparring when he’s sixteen, bunched at his elbows.

Racing him across roofs at eighteen, impromptu, still in civilian clothes.

Staring at twenty-four. Shy, like he’s the one who’s drowning. Dick pushes his hands up under the threadbare thing.

_Pop._

It tears all the way up the side. 

Dick buries his face--when did he get so big, so warm? Laughs and laughs until Damian kisses the joy jealously off his lips.


	33. Dick/Damian: hogwarts au pt 1 - fear

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 33 -  
> pairing: dick/damian  
> rating: teen  
> warnings: mild fantasy racism  
> (loosely) for torycat's prompt. may return to this sandbox.

Spared his Muggle parents’ fate by his magic manifesting, Dick Grayson is--a miracle.

Grayson, Gryffindor, plays with Damian’s black-and-yellow scarf, knee-to-knee at breakfast. Never insinuates Damian could feel misplaced.

He doesn’t. When he’s with Grayson, he exists, and everything exists with him.

Ra’s bursts from the Boggart’s wardrobe; Grayson is first to name Damian’s childhood Dark Arts training _trauma._

Spell-casting wandless, Grayson’s unfettered power makes al Ghul ambitions seem like grabs at shadows. 

Grayson cracks his world open and shows him the pearl inside. 

Damian lets go of blood supremacy and black ritual, of everything but his hand.


	34. Dick/Damian: hogwarts au pt 2 - faith

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 34 -  
> pairing: dick/damian  
> rating: teen  
> warnings: mentions of torture

“The Defense professor is _green,”_ Damian snarls.

“I like her.”

“Who don’t you like? Anyway, I doubt she’s even experienced it, let alone used it.”

Grayson’s quill pauses. Paper on broom-charming. Flying without falling: his persistent yen. “Show me.”

 

 _"Silencio,"_ Damian whispers that night.

Spread-eagle on pillows at his feet, Grayson nods at him, eyes clear with faith. 

Then-- _“Crucio.”_

Nothing.

“Try again?”

Damian drops his wand.

The pain of enduring it never pierced as deep as the knowledge he could have hurt Grayson.

 

By seventh year, they develop the first successful nonverbal counter-curse to Cruciatus.


	35. Dick/Damian: hogwarts au pt 3 - fidelity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 35 -  
> pairing: dick/damian  
> rating: teen  
> warnings: none  
> probably the conclusion of this au for now!

“You’re wasted on sport.” The IQA snatched up Gryffindor’s greatest Seeker since Harry Potter, but Dick can’t stay away from the pitch even post-retirement.

“We can’t all revolutionize DADA.” Dick snuggles him in their narrow staff's quarters bed.

“If not for you, I wouldn’t be doing _defense,”_ he reminds him, talking fast so he can’t regret sincerity.

Mercifully, Dick answers only with a kiss. “Hearing a lot of talk, but haven’t seen ‘Dick Grayson’s sweet lips’ cited as second author on any papers yet…”

“That,” Damian sniffs, rubbing Dick’s sore calves under flying instructor’s robes, “would be unprofessional.”


	36. Dick/Roy: anything you ever dreamed to be complete

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 36 -  
> pairing: dick/roy  
> rating: teen  
> warnings: none  
> for the prompt 'gala.' title from 'slide' by the goo goo dolls.

“You don’t clean up too shabby.” Never seen Roy in a tux before. 

He likes his crisp white shirt, his freckled profile. He likes how he scans the gala, shifts foot-to-foot. He likes his confidence and his unease.

“Really?” Roy sways closer, subtle as an accident. “‘Cause you look exactly the same.” 

“Asshole,” Dick hisses. Little obscenities come easier to his tongue around Roy. 

Some things come easier. Others trickier. He’s surer of his balance crossing tightropes than smelling Roy's aftershave.

Sideways smile. _Oh._

Dick wants to feel all his edge and all his give with his mouth.


	37. Dick/Roy: the ones that entertain (and the ones that observe)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 37 -  
> pairing: dick/roy, dick/kory  
> rating: mature (implied sex)  
> warnings: none  
> yes the title is from britney spears.

“Look, I need to talk to you about today’s mission...” _Should_ know to knock by now, but here he is, goggling like a fool at a shirtless Dick.

Dick’s apparently unfazed, like self-consciousness is a word in a language he doesn’t know.

Roy’s belly pretzels. He’s perfect, shiny hair to callused feet. It’s _jealousy,_ like it’s _annoyance_ when Dick’s moans join Kory’s behind thin walls (do they realize how thin?).

“Nope. Not when I’m listening to Britney.” It’s--fucking-- _“Circus”_ bouncing through the speakers. 

Hating him shouldn’t be the monumental task it is.


	38. Dick/Kory: raincheck

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 38 -  
> pairing: dick/kory  
> rating: teen (nudity?)  
> warnings: none  
> for lace's prompt.

He washes the slime off himself, then finds Kory lolling on the couch, hair turbaned.

“I could fly us in five minutes for our reservation,” she announces.

“Ugh,” Dick opines.

Kory opens her arms; he flops on top of her. “Ugh,” she agrees. “I--am tired.” 

Back-to-back-to-back catastrophes have exhausted even indomitable Kory.

“Me...too.” Worn down to mundanity, something easier to admit to himself than it ever was before her. “Raincheck on that romantic night out?”

“No. A romantic night in.” Like it’s simple as that, and when he lets the hum in her chest fill his body, it is.


	39. Dick/Joey: your lips are nettles (your tongue is wine)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 39 -  
> pairing: dick/joey  
> rating: mature (implied sexual content)  
> warnings: sort of dubcon? milder and weirder than it sounds.  
> title from "the violet hour" by sea wolf.

Sometimes, Dick sees Joey in other people.

After a hard, lonely night, Dick wants something to _give_.

Across from the bar’s stained-glass window: honey-blonde, red-green-blue over peach curves.

Later, as he wraps himself in her on her squeaky couch, she strokes his back. Then--sketches figure-eights over his scapula.

Jolted by the gesture’s familiarity, Dick rises on an elbow, scrutinizes the stranger beneath him.

With a proprietary thumb, pulls at his lip. Placid blue eyes flash staticky _purple._

Shocked pleasure zings through him. More than a little, Dick loses himself.

Sometimes, Dick sees Joey in other people.


End file.
